Paul Feig – 17 Quotes

17 Quotes by Paul Feig

Everyone takes pause at 40. It’s the age you have to assess everything in your life. It’s the fictitious marker that’s always coming up when you’re young. The world really does look at you to kind of have it together by 40, and be successful by 40. Whatever success means.

– Paul Feig

As tempting as it seems to wear tennis shoes with your tux, don’t do it. I think it looks ridiculous. If you’re 14 years old, maybe give it a shot. In general, don’t portray anything that says ‘I’m too cool and I don’t care.’

– Paul Feig

I always hated high-school shows and high-school movies, because they were always about the cool kids. It was always about dating and sex, and all the popular kids, and the good-looking kids. And the nerds were super-nerdy cartoons, with tape on their glasses. I never saw ‘my people’ portrayed accurately.

– Paul Feig

It’s healthy to have older friends. You go, ‘Look, I’m younger than them!’ That’s always the nice thing, if you can be the youngest one in the room at times. Like if you’re always the oldest one in the room, you’ll start to feel like the oldest person in the world. So get older friends, because they’re cool. Get cool older friends.

– Paul Feig

Period costume films are fun to discover, but they’re not relatable. It’s more, ‘Wow, that’s cool – did it really look like that back then?’ Whereas with a comedy, you’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s me, that’s my friends.’ No matter what, I want people to relate.

– Paul Feig

The greatest way for people to experience a comedy is to go in not knowing anything about it. But because of marketing, it’s impossible. Marketing meaning that in order to get people to come you can’t just go, ‘Hey, there’s a great movie – we’re not going to show you anything from it but trust us!’

– Paul Feig

What’s great about the geek spirit is that life never seems to stop us, and they never seem to kill our enthusiasm, our optimism and our hunger to experience the world. We keep our sense of humor, we protect our dignity, we talk to our friends about the experience and then we start again fresh the very next day.

– Paul Feig

I’m kind of a failure. I mean, I’ll be honest. I’m successful in that I’m getting to work on great stuff, but I think I’m a failure in all the personal stuff that is most important to me.

– Paul Feig

For years, it’s driven me crazy that women don’t have better roles, especially in comedies. I know so many funny women but I always felt… misogynist streak is too strong a term – but a dismissiveness.

– Paul Feig

I have an inability to enjoy things, but that’s why we’re in comedy. If we were happy, we wouldn’t be funny, I guess.

– Paul Feig

I love funny people, and when I’m with funny people, or people who are amusing in their weirdness, I love it. Because that to me is funny, as opposed to someone who stops and says, ‘Hey let me tell you a joke.’

– Paul Feig

What I don’t like is when I see stuff that I know has had a lot of improv done or is playing around where there’s no purpose to the scene other than to just be funny. What you don’t want is funny scene, funny scene, funny scene, and now here’s the epiphany scene and then the movie’s over.

– Paul Feig

What’s so great about working with really funny women is that vanity comes second. Whatever makes it real and funny, they’re going to go for, and it’s just great.

– Paul Feig

Women’s humor seems to be a little more supportive. It’s just kind of trying to make the other one laugh through funny voices and kind of talking about other people. I respond to that. I feel less like I’m going to get beat up in a room full of women than I do in a room full of guys.

– Paul Feig

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve felt comfortable in a suit. It all started when my mom bought me a three-piece Pierre Cardin suit. I wore that thing everywhere. Eventually I realized I was going to be the kid who got beat up in school, but I kept wearing it.

– Paul Feig

At the end of the day the question comes, what are you doing for the world? You have to try to do something that’s going to add something positive.

– Paul Feig

Wearing a tuxedo isn’t as simple as it sounds. I’ve been to a lot of award shows in Hollywood over the years and have seen some pretty sad tuxes. It’s surprisingly easy to go off the rails.

– Paul Feig